We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, we take a look at Vincent Price, who guest starred in the final Snoop Sisters TV movie, A Black Day for Bluebeard. 

Background

The Snoop Sisters was part of NBC’s classic Mystery Wheel programs, which featured rotating detective programs designed to be aired in a ninety-minute time slot. Rather than being a full hour weekly program, each series would turn out several “movies” each year. The anchors of this format during its run were McCloud, McMillan and Wife, and the best of them all, Columbo. Viewers would tune in at the same time each week and see one of these programs. The wheel program began the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie.

In addition to the three mainstays, other series rotated on Sunday. In There was a Wednesday (later Tuesday) Mystery movie series launched as well. None of these series made it long-term in this format, mostly lasting only a season or two. One of these series was The Snoop Sisters, which aired in rotation as part of the Tuesday Mystery Movie. The series was part of the mystery wheel during the 1973-74 season and there were a total of five Snoop Sisters movies made.

The series focused on two elderly sisters, spinster mystery writer Ernesta Snoop (Helen Hayes) and her widowed sister and poet Gwendolyn Snoop Nicholson (Mildred Natwick) who drive around in a mid-1920s Lincoln and end up stumbling into mysteries that they solve with the help of their chauffer Barney.

The Plot:

The sisters are attending a festival of a friend and horrible horror movie actor Michael Bastion (Price) who is hoping to revive his career, and shows off his showmanship by arriving in a coffin. However, his wife is upset with him and uses the occasion of the festival and his attempted comeback to publicly announce she’s divorcing him.

She gets murdered during one of Bastion’s films and, unfortunately for him, he’s said some incriminating things that make him look like he murdered his wife for her money. However, Bastion insists that his wife wrote him out of her will and turns to the sisters to prove his innocence.

Review:

The Snoop Sisters has been compared to Murder, She Wrote for both having older female writers as the lead characters. While the concept is similar, the feel of the films is a bit more like Miss Marple but with a decided comedic edge to the material.

Both leads are delightful and bring a great sense of balance. Ernesta is the more serious-minded and somewhat more straight-laced sleuth. She does the heavy-duty questioning of witnesses and the humor she brings is a lot more subtle. Gwendolyn is the fun sister. She might be pushing 70 but thinks nothing of cosplaying as the Bride of Frankenstein at the horror movie marathon. She makes up outrageous cover stories to get them into places to investigate, hilariously stalls Bastion so he doesn’t get in the way of their investigation, and even improvs being a palmist to stall for time.

Vincent Price is good in this, playing a character that has a lot in common with him. Not only did Bastion make a lot of horror movies, he also has many extravagant tastes and, like Price, is an expert cook. One big difference is that Bastion is a bad actor, while Price was a good one. Bastion’s poor acting is the reason the sisters believe in his innocence. He’s too bad of an actor to actually fake innocence or surprise. Thankfully, only a good actor like Price can play a bad one like Bastion and have a result that’s good. Price is a marvelous guest star, as Bastion has some fun, over-the-top moments, but also does a good job playing the straight man to Gwendolyn’s scheming.

The story leans more towards the comedy than the mystery angle. That can work and mostly does. My main complaint is that before they even begin to investigate the murder, Bastion sends them to his house to retrieve his wife’s will. This means it takes a good long while to get the actually investigating of the murder. While there were some funny moments, plotwise, it comes across as padding. There are also a few minor plot elements that could have been improved. While this was enjoyable, this is a story that feels like it could have been a bit more tight.

Connections:

Roddy McDowell, who also played a villain in the 1960s Batman series, is among the guest stars in this series. On the creative end, three old-time radio veterans contributed to the story. The episode was directed by David Friedkin, who was part of the old-time radio writing team with Mort Fine. They wrote many old-time radio programs, including Broadway’s My Beat. The story was by Jackson GIllis, who wrote for many radio programs, including Let George Do It. One of the co-writers of the screenplay was Tony Barrett, who was a versatile radio character actor who also wrote for some radio programs towards the end of the Golden Age of Radio.

Rating:

I’d gotten the Snoop Sisters DVD a while back but hadn’t gotten around to watching it and was glad this series gave me an excuse to try the series out. Overall, if you love a good cozy mystery with a comedic spin, particularly with an older protagonist, this is a fun film to watch.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

Availability:

The Snoop Sisters is not available on streaming anywhere. However, unlike many of the shorter-lived mystery wheel series, this one did receive an official DVD Release.  (Affiliate link.)